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sejarah
Shaolin Kung Fu
Focus | Hybrid |
Country of origin | China |
Creator | Unknown |
Shaolin Kung Fu refers to a collection of
Chinese martial arts that claim affiliation with the
Shaolin Monastery. Of the tens of thousands of
kung fu wushu styles, several hundred might have some relationship to Shaolin; however, aside from a few very well known systems, such as
Xiao Hong Quan, the
Da Hong Quan,
Yin Shou Gun,
Damo Sword, etc.
[citation needed], it would be almost impossible to establish a verifiable connection to the
Temple for any one particular art
Internal and external arts
Huang Zongxi described
Chinese martial arts in terms of Shaolin or
external arts versus
Wudang or
internal arts in 1669.
[1] It has been since then that Shaolin has been popularly synonymous for what are considered the external Chinese martial arts, regardless of whether or not the particular style in question has any connection to the
Shaolin Monastery. Some say that there is no differentiation between the so-called internal and external systems of the Chinese martial arts
[2][3], while other well known teachers have expressed differing opinions. For example, the
Taijiquan teacher
Wu Jianquan:
Those who practice Shaolinquan leap about with strength and force; people not proficient at this kind of training soon lose their breath and are exhausted. Taijiquan is unlike this. Strive for quiescence of body, mind and intention.[4]
In 1784 the
Boxing Classic: Essential Boxing Methods made the earliest extant reference to the Shaolin Monastery as Chinese boxing's place of origin.
[5][6] Again, this is a misconception, as Chinese martial arts pre-date the construction of the
Shaolin Temple by at least several hundred years.
[3][7]
Origin
Legend of Bodhidharma
According to the
Jingde of the Lamp, after
Bodhidharma, a Buddhist monk from
South India,
[8] left the court of the
Liang emperor
Wu in 527, he eventually found himself at the Shaolin Monastery, where he “faced a wall for nine years, not speaking for the entire time”.
According to the
Yì Jīn Jīng,
after Bodhidharma faced the wall for nine years at Shaolin temple and made a hole with his stare, he left behind an iron chest. When the monks opened this chest they found two books: the “Marrow Cleansing Classic,”[9] and the “Muscle Tendon Change Classic”, or "Yi Jin Jing"[10] within. The first book was taken by Bodhidharma's disciple Huike, and disappeared; as for the second, the monks selfishly coveted it, practicing the skills therein, falling into heterodox ways, and losing the correct purpose of cultivating the Real. The Shaolin monks have made some fame for themselves through their fighting skill; this is all due to their possession of this manuscript.[11]
History
1517 stele dedicated to Vajrapani's defeat of the
Red Turban rebels.
Guanyin (his original form) can be seen in the clouds above his head.
The attribution of Shaolin's martial arts to Bodhidharma has been discounted by several 20th century martial arts historians, first by Tang Hao on the grounds that the
Yì Jīn Jīng is a forgery.
[12] Stele and documentary evidence shows the monks historically worshiped the
Bodhisattva Vajrapani's "Kimnara King" form as the progenitor of their staff and bare hand fighting styles.
[13]
Huiguang and Sengchou were involved with martial arts before they became two of the very first Shaolin monks, reported as practicing martial arts before the arrival of Bodhidharma.
[14] Sengchou's skill with the tin staff is even documented in the
Chinese Buddhist canon.
Records of the discovery of arms caches in the monasteries of
Chang'an during government raids in AD 446 suggests that Chinese monks practiced martial arts prior to the establishment of the Shaolin Monastery in 497.
[15] Monks came from the ranks of the population among whom the martial arts were widely practiced prior to the introduction of Buddhism. There are indications that Huiguang, Sengchou and even Huike, Bodhidarma's immediate successor as Patriarch of
Chán Buddhism, may have been military men before retiring to the monastic life. Moreover, Chinese monasteries, not unlike those of Europe, in many ways were effectively large landed estates, that is, sources of considerable regular income which required protection.
In addition to that, the
Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue, the
Bibliographies in the Book of the Han Dynasty and the
Records of the Grand Historian all document the existence of martial arts in China before Bodhidharma. The martial arts
Shuāi Jiāo and
Sun Bin Quan, to name two, predate the establishment of the Shaolin Monastery by centuries.
[16]
Tang Dynasty (618–907)
The oldest evidence of Shaolin participation in combat is a
stele from 728 that attests to two occasions: a defense of the monastery from bandits around 610 and their role in the defeat of
Wang Shichong at the
Battle of Hulao in 621.
Like most dynastic changes, the end of the
Sui Dynasty was a time of upheaval and contention for the throne. Wang Shichong declared himself Emperor. He controlled the territory of
Zheng and the ancient capital of
Luoyang.
Overlooking Luoyang on Mount Huanyuan was the Cypress Valley Estate, which had served as the site of a fort during the
Jin and a commandery during the
Southern Qi.
[17] Sui Emperor Wen had bestowed the estate on a nearby monastery called Shaolin for its monks to farm but Wang Shichong, realizing its strategic value, seized the estate and there placed troops and a signal tower, as well as establishing a prefecture called Yuanzhou.
[17] Furthermore, he had assembled an army at Luoyang to march on the Shaolin Temple itself.
The monks of Shaolin allied with Wang's enemy, Li Shimin, and took back the Cypress Valley Estate, defeating Wang's troops and capturing his nephew Renze.
Without the fort at Cypress Valley, there was nothing to keep Li Shimin from marching on Luoyang after his defeat of Wang's ally Dou Jiande at the
Battle of Hulao, forcing Wang Shichong to surrender.
Li Shimin's father was the
first Tang Emperor and Shimin himself became its
second.
Thereafter Shaolin enjoyed the royal patronage of the Tang
Though the Shaolin Monastery Stele of 728 attests to these incidents in 610 and 621 when the monks engaged in combat, it does not allude to martial training in the monastery, or to any fighting technique in which its monks specialized. Nor do any other sources from the Tang, Song and Yuan periods allude to military training at the temple.
According to
Meir Shahar, this is explained by a confluence of the late Ming fashion for military encyclopedias and, more importantly, the conscription of civilian irregulars, including monks, as a result of Ming military decline in the 16th century.
[18]
Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)
From the 8th to the 15th centuries, no extant source documents Shaolin participation in combat; then the 16th and 17th centuries see at least forty extant sources attest that, not only did monks of Shaolin practice martial arts, but martial practice had become such an integral element of Shaolin monastic life that the monks felt the need to justify it by creating new Buddhist lore.
[18] References to Shaolin martial arts appear in various literary genres of the late Ming: the epitaphs of Shaolin warrior monks, martial-arts manuals, military encyclopedias, historical writings, travelogues, fiction, and even poetry.
[18]
These sources, in contrast to those from the
Tang Dynasty period, refer to Shaolin methods of combat unarmed, with the
spear, and with the weapon that was the forte of the Shaolin monks and for which they had become famous, the
staff.
[18][6] By the mid-16th century military experts from all over
Ming China were travelling to Shaolin to study its fighting techniques.
Around 1560
Yú Dàyóu travelled to Shaolin Monastery to see for himself its monks' fighting techniques, but found them disappointing. Yú returned to the south with two monks, Zongqing and Pucong, whom he taught the use of the staff over the next three years, after which Zongqing and Pucong returned to Shaolin Monastery and taught their brother monks what they had learned. Martial arts historian Tang Hao traced the Shaolin staff style Five Tigers Interception to Yú's teachings.
[citation needed]
The earliest extant manual on Shaolin Kung Fu, the
Exposition of the Original Shaolin Staff Method[19] was written around 1610 and published in 1621 from what its author Chéng Zōngyóu learned during a more than ten year stay at the monastery.
Conditions of lawlessness in
Henan—where the Shaolin Monastery is located—and surrounding provinces during the late
Ming Dynasty and all of the
Qing Dynasty contributed to the development of martial arts. Meir Shahar lists the martial arts
T'ai Chi Ch'üan, Chang Family Boxing,
Bāguàquán,
Xíngyìquán and
Bājíquán as originating from this region and this time period.
[18]
Pirates
In the 1540s and 1550s,
Japanese pirates known as
wokou raided
China's eastern and southeastern coasts on an unprecedented scale.
The geographer Zheng Ruoceng provides the most detailed of the 16th century sources which confirm that, in 1553, Wan Biao, Vice Commissioner in Chief of the Nanjing Chief Military Commission, initiated the conscription of monks—including some from Shaolin—against the pirates.
[18] Warrior monks participated in at least four battles: at the
Gulf of Hangzhou in spring of 1553 and in the
Huangpu River delta at Wengjiagang in July 1553, Majiabang in spring of 1554, and Taozhai in autumn of 1555.
[18]
The monks suffered their greatest defeat at Taozhai, where four of them fell in battle; their remains were buried under the Stūpa of the Four Heroic Monks (
Si yi seng ta) at Mount She near
Shanghai.
[18]
The monks won their greatest victory at Wengjiagang.
[18] On 21 July 1553, 120 warrior monks led by the Shaolin monk Tianyuan defeated a group of pirates and chased the survivors over ten days and twenty miles.
[18] The pirates suffered over one hundred casualties and the monks only four.
[18].
Not all of the monks who fought at Wengjiagang were from Shaolin, and rivalries developed among them. Zheng chronicles Tianyuan’s defeat of eight rival monks from Hangzhou who challenged his command. Zheng ranked Shaolin first of the top three Buddhist centers of martial arts.
[18] Zheng ranked Mount Funiu in
Henan second and
Mount Wutai in
Shanxi third. The Funiu monks practiced staff techniques which they had learned at the Shaolin Monastery. The Wutai monks practiced Yang Family Spear (楊家槍;
pinyin: Yángjiā qīang).
Influence outside of China
Some lineages of
Karate have oral traditions that claim Shaolin origins.
[20] Martial arts traditions in
Japan and
Korea, and
Southeast Asia cite Chinese influence as transmitted by Buddhist monks.
Recent developments in the 20th century such as
Shorinji Kempo (
少林寺拳法) practised in Japan's
Sohonzan Shorinji (
金剛禅総本山少林寺) still maintains close ties with China's Song Shan Shaolin Temple due to historic links
[21]. Japanese Shorinji Kempo Group financial contributions to the maintenance of the historic edifice of the Song Shan Shaolin Temple in 2003 received China's recognition.
[22]
In popular culture
Shaolin, in popular culture, has taken on a second life. Since the 1970s, it has been featured in many films, TV shows, video games, cartoons, and other media. While much of this is a commercialized aspect of Shaolin, it is also widely credited as keeping the 1500 year old temple in the consciousness of the world, and from vanishing into obscurity like many other ancient traditions. The Abbot of Shaolin, Shi Yong Xin, has decided to embrace modern day pop culture and has used it to the advantage of the temple to keep the temple prominent on the world stage.
The 1970s television series
Kung Fu starred
David Carradine as
Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk on the run in the Wild West whose Zen (Ch'an) training is tested along his journey. Carradine's part was originally to be played by
Bruce Lee. Ironically, Lee was pulled at the last minute before airing for looking "too Chinese" for an American public accustomed to white actors portraying ethnic minority characters for a mainly white audience. However, the character of Caine was supposed to be of mixed Chinese and European ancestry, a fact which may have also had an influence on this decision. In the 1990s, Carradine starred in the series
Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, which followed the grandson and great-grandson of the original Caine in a large modern city.
In 1977, the cult classic
Shaw Brothers film
Shaolin Temple was released and in 1982 a film by the same name starring
Jet Li is credited as a major reason for the revival of the
Shaolin Temple in China after the
Cultural Revolution.
[citation needed] The film's story tells the legend of the Shaolin Temple. This film is followed by countless other films, including another
Shaw Brothers film entitled the
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which depicts the training of the legendary Shaolin monk
San Te.
In the 1990s, the American Hip-hop group
The Wu Tang Clan arises, often making frequent references to Shaolin, sometimes as a name for their home,
Staten Island, New York. The references arise from the group growing up in Staten Island in the late 1970s, and being influenced by movie theaters playing and advertising Kung Fu movies based on the Shaolin fighting style. Video games and cartoons begin to also feature Shaolin, such as the cartoon
Xiaolin Showdown.
Liu Kang, the main character in the
Mortal Kombat series, is a Shaolin monk, and
Kung Lao from the same series, is also a Shaolin monk who seeks to avenge the temple's destruction, (led by
Baraka in Mortal Kombat's story), they were so popular, they were turned into their own video game,
Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks.
Krillin, a character in the
Dragon Ball/Dragon Ball Z universe, is also a Shaolin monk, though he abandons the Shaolin fighting style in favor of
Muten-Rôshi's Turtle technique.
In 2000's, Shaolin gets pop-culture recognition by appearing on the
The Simpsons (TV series), where they visit the Shaolin Temple in the episode
Goo Goo Gai Pan, which first aired in 2006. That same year, the Abbot of Shaolin invites the K-Star martial arts reality TV show to film a TV series of foreigners competing to survive Shaolin style training.
Two prominent publications about Shaolin were published in 2007, including the first ever photo documentary on the temple entitled
Shaolin: Temple of Zen, published by the non-profit
Aperture Foundation, featuring the photos of
National Geographic photographer
Justin Guariglia. The Shaolin Abbot, Shi Yong Xin, has written the foreword attesting the authenticity of the project. These became the first photographs seen of monks practicing classical kung fu inside the temple. American author Matthew Polly, also has written a book recounting his story of his two years living, studying, and performing with the Shaolin monks in China in the early 1990s. A third, more academic book, is "The Shaolin Monastery; History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts," published by the Israeli Shaolin scholar Meier Shahar in 2008 about the history of the Shaolin Temple.
While some of these are clear commercial exploitation of the Shaolin Temple and its legends, they have helped make Shaolin a household name around the world, and kept the temple alive in the minds of many young generations. To date, no other temple in the world has achieved such wide spread recognition.
List of styles currently taught at the temple
- Xiao Hong Quan - Little Red Fist
- Da Hong Quan - Big flood fist
- Tong Bei Quan - Through the back fist
- Liu He Quan - Six harmonies fist
- Taizu Chang Quan - Emperor Taizu's long fist( this refers particularly to the 1st Emperor of Sung dynasty who was a military commander)
- Qixing Quan - Seven star fist
- Da Pao Quan - Big cannon fist
- Xiao Pao Quan - Small cannon fist
- Chang Hu Xin Yi Men - Forever preserve the heart-mind link/door
- Meihuaquan - Plum flower fist
- Luohan Quan - Arhat fist
- Tongzigong - Shaolin child training
- Dan Dao - Single sabre technique
- Long – Dragon technique
- Qi Lu Quan - Seven animal fist
Special Shaolin Training Methods
In 1934 Jin Jing Zhong published a book variously known in English as
Shaolin 72 Shaolin Arts Practice Method or
Training Methods of 72 Arts of Shaolin.
[23] This work lists what are alleged to be authentic Shaolin training methods that can produce extraordinary skills and abilities; examples of these skills include
iron body techniques (both offensive and defensive), jumping and wall scaling techniques, pole-top leaping dexterity training, pressure-point and nerve manipulation, and a host of other feats. Most of these skills require anywhere from three to ten years to master, according to the author. Jin claims to have witnessed many of these skills himself or to have learned of them from a scroll given to him by Shaolin Abbot Miao Xing, though the work tends to exaggerate and embellish.
[24]
Contemporary Training at the Shaolin Temple
While most warrior monks tend to be focused on performance geared toward the touring troupes, a smaller cadre of Shaolin warrior monks seek the traditional route that focuses somewhat more on self-defense and authenticity of techniques. In many ways, the contemporary performing warrior monks are comparable to contemporary wushu artists who focus on beautiful, elaborately dazzling form rather than original martial application and fighting prowess. The 72 Shaolin Arts are more indicative of the older, original Shaolin temple fighting system and theory. Also, performing monks are not pressured to practice or study Zen, while inside the temple, at least a show of deference for the Shaolin customs is expected by the masters of their chosen warrior monk disciples.
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